ANIMAL HOUSE: SHEDD'S SHACK HAS PLENTY OF 'EM

Inside the Delray Beach home of hunting enthusiast Charles Shedd, that is. Shedd's home is virtually given over to the many big game trophies he has collected throughout the years during his expeditions in Wyoming, Mexico, British Columbia, Alaska and Africa.

Shedd's visitors are initially greeted by a small African leopard mounted on a simulated gravel platform on the wall in the narrow front entrance hall. But the main living area is where the bulk of his collection is displayed.

There, a large Cape Buffalo head juts out above the mantle of a rustic stone fireplace flanked by a pair of curved African elephant tusks. One is 7 feet, 9 inches and the other is 7 feet, 11 inches. They are exceptionally well matched, Shedd said, because tusks from the same elephant sometimes vary as much as a foot in length.

On the wall to the left of the fireplace, an African lion is poised, ready to pounce on its prey. Shedd said the lion has very little mane because the Tsavo area is thick with thorns. The thorns, acting like combs, pulled off most of the lion's mane.

The walls are covered with other mounted animals, including gazelles, antelopes, goats, woodchucks, weasels, bobcats, deer and sheep. The latter, Shedd said, represent he is called the Grand Slam of sheep: two bighorns, one desert, one stone and one dall.

Shedd's trophies spill over into an adjacent bedroom, where twin beds are draped with zebra, water buck, coyote and polar bear skins.

The head of a giant, glassy-eyed rhinoceros rests on the floor in a corner. Shedd said rhinoceros horns are extremely valuable, often worth $2,000 or more. He said that in China they are used to make an aphrodisiac powder, and in Arab countries they are used to make knife handles, which are highly prized as status symbols for men.

The costs of mounting game animals depend not only on the materials used but on the quality of the mount itself.

"When I first started in this business nine years ago, a full-size bobcat mounting ran about $450 -- today it is about $650," said Guy Lampone, owner of North American Taxidermy Inc. in Pompano Beach. "We charge more for the larger animals, of course. Our full-size lion mountings, for instance, used to run about $2,000. Now they're $3,000."

Shedd's 19-year-old daughter, Holly, is used to the decor, but her friends may see things differently.

"Well, none of my friends have houses like this. When they see ours, they look around for a long time and don't say much of anything. Really, they love it; but I think they're kind of in shock."

Shedd also used to have a large collection of guns in his home. However, several were stolen in a robbery a few years ago, so he now keeps them elsewhere.

Shedd, at 50, is slight of build, balding, unassuming and softspoken, a contrast to the stereotypical Great White Hunter image.

"Because of my hunting, I think I'm much more patient and quiet than I used to be. In fact, I know I am," he said.

Shedd first hunted with his uncle as a boy growing up in Chicago. He owned a BB gun when he was 5, a .22 rifle at 7, and a shotgun at 9.

In his adolescence, he passed up an opportunity to go to prep school because he wanted to remain at home, where he could spend more time hunting.

"I had a choice. I could either go away to prep school or stay in Chicago and have time to shoot. I chose to stay in Chicago and have time to shoot," he said.

Nevertheless, in 1956, Shedd earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering at Yale University and later a master's degree in business administration at the University of Chicago.

In the late 1950s, Shedd's friends introduced him to big game hunting in Wyoming. He enjoyed it so much that, in 1963, when he became dissatisfied with his engineering job in Chicago, he quit to enjoy the life of a big game hunter in Africa for awhile.

"I figured it was then or never," he said.

Shedd went alone, and within 45 days, he bagged a rhinoceros, a buffalo, two elephants and several small plains animals, many of which are in his home today.

When he returned to the United States, he married and become the father of two daughters and a son, all now in their teens.

For several years, Shedd managed to combine his knowledge of business with his love of hunting and the outdoors by operating a Wyoming hunting facility and acting as his clients' guide.

Hunting trips involve more advance planning than a lot of people might realize, Shedd said.

First, he said, hunters must decide what species they want. The period after after that is what he calls the "fun time" of making phone calls and writing letters to the fish and game commission in the area in which the particular species is found in order to get permit forms, information on procedures for getting licenses, cost quotes and, if possible, a list of guides and outfitters.

Shedd stressed the importance of checking the references of the guides and outfitters.

"Have you ever gone to an auto repair shop and had the person not do the job correctly? Well, it can happen the same way in hunting," he said.

Hunting costs range from a few dollars for permission from a rancher to hunt on his land to several thousand dollars for more elaborate arrangements, which might include transportation from the airport to the hunting location and back again and room and board at the hunting site.

An especially memorable hunt for Shedd was one to Kotzebue, Alaska, where he bagged a polar bear that made the United States Boone and Crockett Club book because of its exceptional 11-by-11 foot size.

In addition to his love for hunting, Shedd is an avid fisherman. (So far he hasn't mounted any fish trophies, though.)

Now an independent businessman in Delray Beach, he travels to Wyoming at least once a year to hunt and fish with with his friends.

In response to people who object to hunting animals for sport, Shedd said that a lot of people do not realize that hunters provide a valuable service by preventing animal overpopulation.

He added that the number of animals hunters are allowed to shoot, as well as the number of hunting licenses issued, depends on the findings of carefully conducted studies concerning the existing animal population, the amount of food available and the severity of winter in a particular region.

"The land will only support so many animals," he said. "Where hunting does not provide adequate population control, many suffer a less merciful death through starvation."